TOM GARVIN Irish Academic Press €22.50 ISBN 9781911024224 Reviewed by: Thomas O’Loughlin It is the common destiny of most scholars, and certainly those who describe themselves as medievalists, to survive only as footnotes—and for the quantity of those footnotes to diminish steadily with the passing of the years. One of the very few exceptions, and … Read more
TIMOTHY EGAN Houghton Mifflin Harcourt $28 ISBN 9780544272880 Reviewed by: Dean Jobb Thomas Francis Meagher should have died in 1849, at the age of 25. A leader of the failed Young Ireland uprising, he faced the death penalty for treason. Offered a chance to speak before the sentence was passed, Meagher—a spellbinding orator—made a passionate … Read more
MARTIN BROWN OSB and COLMÁN Ó CLABAIGH OSB (eds) Four Courts Press €45 ISBN 9781846825729 Reviewed by: Peter Harbison Over the years, and through documentary sources, we have been hearing a lot about the medieval religious orders in this country but, in comparison, very little about the two military orders—the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller—who … Read more
By Joseph E.A. Connell Jr Frongoch internment camp was located in a former whiskey distillery in Merionethshire, Wales. Until 1916 it housed German prisoners of war in the disused distillery buildings and crude huts, but in the wake of the Rising the German prisoners were moved and it was used as a place of internment … Read more
ROBERT SCHMUHL Oxford University Press £19.99 ISBN 9780190224288 Reviewed by: John Gibney One of the most quoted phrases of the 1916 Proclamation comes in the second paragraph, in which its authors indicate that the various insurgent organisations were not acting alone: they also had the assistance of ‘gallant allies in Europe’, a reference that is … Read more